


i've got the strangest feeling this isn't our first time around

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Simulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Akane knows how to fight until she can't remember who she is. Which is exactly what she wants to do when she's cleared to leave the simulation. She wants to fight and fight until she forgets that she's torn between two realities.





	i've got the strangest feeling this isn't our first time around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [implicit_despair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/implicit_despair/gifts).



A year after she’s cleared to put the simulation behind her for good, Akane ends up in hospital. When she wakes in a clinical, white room, her first reaction is to scream so loudly that at least three doctors come running into her room; she doesn’t stop, because as far as she knows, she’s _back there._ Although her body is free, she feels the weight of imaginary chains around her wrists, shackling her to a reality she doesn’t believe she belongs in. When she tries to move, everything hurts, and it’s not a relief when she’s sedated – because having no control over sleep reminds her of things she’d rather not think about any more.

The second time she wakes, she’s high on painkillers and more subdued. Still, she isn’t alone. Vaguely, her mind is grasping at the tendrils of the tangible world; what she knows to be a memory is not in the room with her – she’s in the room with someone she can touch, feel; someone alive.

“Hey,” the voice next to her shocks her enough to pull her further towards the world. She turns, recognises the face; someone from a memory, and someone real – someone just as in-between as she is. Nekomaru.

“Heard you kicked up a real fuss when you woke up yesterday,” he says.

“Y-Yesterday? But I –”

“Yeah, you’ve been knocked out since then. I was in the bathroom and I came back and the doctors told me everything that happened.”

“Man,” she says, rubbing her temples and sitting up, “what _did_ happen? This is hospital, right? Why?”

“You don’t remember, huh?”

“Nope.”

“You got in a fight. Like, a bad one. Outside a bar. I found out and came to see you, but you were doped up on meds. You’ll be fine though. That’s what the doctor said.”

“Oh,” she replies, “I…don’t remember.”

“Yeah, they mentioned that too. Said you got hit in the head pretty bad and, well, y’know, all the other memory stuff you – I mean all of us – had. So. Yeah. But there’s no long term problems.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

They sit in silence. When he holds her hand, she lets herself go to sleep – she isn’t going _back there_ as long as she’s grasping onto some part of the real world.

It only takes six months before Nekomaru asks Akane to move in with him. They both need it, and it’s not like the world is gong to be okay again any time soon, so it simply makes sense to share a bed and have someone to hold onto when the nightmares don’t leave in the morning. Frequently, they catch themselves in some form of domestic routine, doing things that normal people do; making eggs, getting up before midday, sleeping for more than five hours. These days, it’s not that the world is okay, it’s just that reality is a lot easier to grasp onto for a little longer.

But these days are always outnumbered.

When, for the fifth night in a row, Akane finds herself once more in a bar, she knows that something isn’t fixing itself within her. But, at least this time, she isn’t alone. It doesn’t help that Fuyuhiko is next to her, matching her measure for measure in straight spirits, but she can fool herself a little longer into thinking that she’s coping if someone else is beside her, mirroring her crushing confusion.

It becomes a game between the two of them; drinking until they pass out. Like they’re always teetering on the precipice of dying, or getting worse, but _getting worse_ feels a lot like _going mad,_ and they’d both be okay with gong so far into their own heads that they can no longer think. In this way, the alcohol helps. Until it doesn’t.

Until they’re tired, stumbling, depressed. Until they’re vomiting outside of a closed bar, holding onto each other, staining their clothes with whiskey and, occasionally, blood. Until they’re lying to each other, calling each other beautiful, saying that they’re both worth something; gritted teeth with words still slipping through. Almost as if they’re trying to build a new reality and live in it; but they tried that, and it gave them only bruises and heartache.

It’s past four in the morning when Akane becomes conscious that she’s in the front seat of someone’s car. Her vision is blurry, but she can see that Nekomaru is driving; his hands white-knuckled against the wheel, his eyes staring straight ahead. Behind her, Peko holds Fuyuhiko in her lap, stroking his hair and telling him that she’ll stay awake all night to make sure he doesn’t choke in his sleep. This is what they’ve become – their talents make them pawns in an inescapable game of which one of them will die, first, again.

The streetlights are hard to watch, flickering past the car windows, terrifying reminders that the world continues to turn no matter which reality they try to distance themselves from. Static comes through the car radio, and Nekomaru abruptly turns it off – some things, for no particular reason, make them believe that they’re regressing back into the simulation. Sickeningly aware, suddenly, that she’s real, Akane rolls down the car window and sticks her head completely out; the wind pushes her hair and her cheeks back, like she’s free for only a moment – the same way a prisoner on his way to death row re-evaluates freedom as the clock ticks down. When her mind flashes to metal, and oil, and rooms that spin, she bites down hard on her lip. Tonight, as every previous night, is just another turn on the rack to which she is strapped, stretching her endlessly between two realities, neither of which she wants to belong in.

Some time passes, and they’re still driving, from one point to another. The road ahead seems like it could stretch on into infinity; gravel wearing down the tyres. She imagines how it would feel to be tied to the road, able to focus wholly on one inevitability for the first time in a long time.

Then, there’s a gentle hand on her thigh, and she turns her face back towards the inside of the car. There are still four people inside; one asleep, one crying, one driving, and her. She covers Nekomaru’s hand with her own, and tells him to drive faster.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! It was suggested that I write more post-simulation fics, so here's this! Hope you enjoyed; leave a comment if you did :D
> 
> Title from 'Past Lives' by BØRNS


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